In Augustus, you vie with your fellow players to complete "objective" cards for special powers and ultimately for victory points. Each card has 2-6 symbols which you must populate with legionnaire meeples in order to complete the card. These symbols are drawn one at a time from a bag, with all players gaining the benefit equally, but interestingly, the bag contains more of some symbols than others.
So the pivotal skill you'll deploy is in making your choice of which three objectives you'll start the game with (you're dealt six) — balancing potential difficulty of completion against value of the reward — and then which of five available objectives you'll add to your plate each time you complete one of your three. The game ends when someone completes seven objectives.
- accessible and fun due to bingo mechanic
- beautiful production
- some may find theme light
- can feel luck-driven
- bingo-themed set collection with thematic tiles
- Roman era political maneuvering and expansion
- accessible, social, light strategy
- Libertalia
- Power Grid
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bingo-style draw/selection — random draws with strategic decisions to claim tiles
- set collection / area control — collect sets to gain special abilities and shift position
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The Spiellers Yares Award is the most prestigious award in board gaming in the world.
- Bucket King 3D uses plastic cups that stack on top of each other to give it a real three-dimensional view.
- It's a lot of fun.
- This is not a great game, but it is a funny one.
- Splendor is everywhere. The artwork is so boring. It’s a lovely game, don’t get me wrong.
- Rise of Augustus demonstrates that bingo is the one thing that makes it so accessible.
- This is an accessible, simple game. It's got a beautiful look to it.
- Concept would have been a worthy winner.
- Arcadia looks amazing when you play it and lay it out on the table.
References (from this video)
- Adds meaningful rewards to the bingo-style mechanic
- Huge variety of objectives keeps decisions fresh
- Token draws create anticipation and moments of payoff
- Perfect length for a filler game
- Accessible for families and casual players
- Random token draws can frustrate certain players
- Lack of an in-game mechanism to influence draws
- Scaling with player count is limited and can slow rewards competition
- Downtime can occur while waiting for last tokens to appear
- military conquest and regional control through objective-driven play
- Ancient Rome with legions, regions, and political-military maneuvering
- objective-driven with random token reveals and take-that powers
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Bag token draw — Chits are drawn from a central bag, and icons are announced to drive action.
- Center rewards and color objectives — Rewards are earned for completing center tiles and color-based objectives, influencing end-game scoring.
- end-game trigger and scoring — Game ends when a player completes seven objectives; scoring tallies rewards and powers.
- Icon covering on objectives — Players cover icons on their objective cards as matching tokens are revealed.
- Immediate, permanent, and end-game powers — Objective cards grant immediate effects, lasting effects, or end-game scoring bonuses.
- Objective card management — Players start with six objective cards, choose three, and work to complete them for rewards.
- Short, family-friendly filler — The game aims for a light, quick playtime around half an hour.
- take that — Red powers can force opponents to remove legions or disrupt their plans.
- Take-that mechanics — Red powers can force opponents to remove legions or disrupt their plans.
- Turn Order: Variable — Token reveals are random, creating anticipation and pacing challenges.
- Variable token order — Token reveals are random, creating anticipation and pacing challenges.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- essentially bingo in a box
- the perfect length
- a fun yet limited filler game
- random token draw could frustrate certain types of players
- there's nothing you can do about what comes out of the bag
- it occupies a unique space
References (from this video)
- ancient Rome, bingo-esque card drafting
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- you start rich and you're trying to blow as much money as you can as quickly as possible by making bad investments
- this one however has a quite a different feel to a lot of the other rolling rights
- it's strictly two player puzzly abstract style game
- this is the newest printing of the bunk
- this one actually uses the between two cities mechanism where you're working with the people to your left and right except on this one
- it's a game that's fascinated me
- the idea of puzzle this stuff around get the ideal family photo
- gamers bingo